The Connection Between Yoga and Addiction Recovery

The Connection Between Yoga and Addiction Recovery

Addiction recovery is a complex and manifold process, involving all parts of a human’s being. In the same way as every person has his or her own reasons to resort to drugs in the first place, and their own way down into the addiction, the way up to freedom is also different for everybody. Everybody has to rebuild their own personality after damage caused by drugs, and it won’t do to try and rebuild it after a blueprint that doesn’t have anything to do with the original.

Because of this, it is a bit strange that an absolute majority of drug rehabilitation programs are more or less mechanical – their participants simply follow a pre-determined regimen that has little to no difference from case to case.

Drug addiction isn’t an illness per se — it is a complicated affliction affecting in equal measure body, psyche, and rationality. As a result, it is only natural that the process of rehabilitation should involve practices that improve the condition of all three. Fortunately, lately there’s been an upsurge of a more synergetic approach to the rehab process.

As an example, the program Best Drug Rehab by Per Wickstrom advocates an individual approach to every participant and offers a wide range of practices tailored for people of all ages, races, and cultural backgrounds. One such practice is yoga, and it is no accident that it occupies a special place in the program’s treatment system.

Yoga is an ancient practice originating in India and encompassing many apparently unconnected things, ranging from sets of exercises, meditation, and learning the skills of controlled breathing to far-reaching philosophical concepts and ideas. As such, it has powerful effects on all aspects of being. On a physical level, it has proven its ability to improve general health to an impressive extent, and on a psychological level, it has a considerable calming effect. As a result, yoga possesses synergetic restorative properties that are perhaps unique in the way they affect human beings as a whole, without undue concentration on any particular aspect.

While the initial stages of a yoga-centric program may prove challenging for people who have never taken part in yoga exercises before, there is no cause for undue alarm – yoga is one of those things that you don’t need considerable knowledge of to start out, and once you begin you may proceed in a natural way as long as you actually listen to the instructions of your teachers. Moreover, each and every person can take exactly what they need without going unnecessarily deep. Those interested in the physical applications of yoga exercises will stick to them without bothering with the philosophy aspect, for example. At the same time, even such an approach is bound to produce some kind of beneficial effect, especially if you consider the fact that people suffering from addiction and making their first tentative steps on the road to health and rehabilitation can use any possible help to move on.

Yoga is especially well known for how useful it is for achieving inner peace and tranquility – and this is exactly what post-addiction patients need. Without some kind of inner peace, it is hardly possible to get your healthy life back, and yoga is an excellent help in this respect. One of the most important parts of yoga courses is that they teach new skills that can be just as well practiced outside of the class and can come in handy whenever the participants feel especially depressed or confused.

Drug rehab needn’t be all about drugs – it may just as well be about learning something new about life and bringing new experiences into your existence.